


fuel the pyre of your enemies

by bechloehuh, chloebeale (bechloehuh)



Series: bemily week 2019 [2]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, have i ever mentioned i love bemily, very soft and cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-24 00:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18159176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/pseuds/bechloehuh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/pseuds/chloebeale
Summary: in the middle of the end, they find peace





	fuel the pyre of your enemies

**Author's Note:**

> tw: brief mention of blood
> 
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3BEBXgUijpuhfDBI0I7KCk?si=RGkpbr-kRdGrhXMGetIBvQ) | [moodboard](http://chloebeale.tumblr.com/post/183549161399/aesthetic-bemily-week-2019-day-8-zombie)

Fresh blood drips onto the floor as she’s ushered into the small house.

The comforting hand on her back is the only thing that has been anchoring her, keeping her walking without looking back; staying on two feet and fighting the urge to just collapse into the mud.

Her left hand is pressed against the bullet wound on her arm, using Beca’s old scrunched up flannel as substitute for a gauze, as her other hand tightly grips the knife that she’d used to kill the last walker before she got shot.

She’s not sure what went wrong. It was supposed to be a quick trip to the pharmacy for some medicine before they continued to head West to find the others. They’d, thankfully, managed to get the supplies and pack them up before they were stuck in between a rock and a hard place; a group of raiders and a horde of walkers.

Beca had fired the first shot, and Emily didn’t have time to be angry at her before there were bullets ricocheting off of cars and dead people power-walking towards them, riled up by the sounds of gunfire.

The images flash across her mind as Beca sits her down on an old, dirty couch. A bullet firing from Beca’s pistol and into the head of a raider, one of the raider’s knives flying through the air and narrowly missing Beca’s head, the sound of the dead getting closer, a horde of shuffling footsteps that seem to haunt Emily night and day since the outbreak a year ago.

* * *

**_"In the case of an apocalypse, we advise you to seek shelter and to stay away from any potential threats. Protection from the dangers happening right now will require taking shelter in either your home or one of the many safe-zones that the military will be operating and staying away from any infected personnel. If you cannot make it home or to a safe-zone, seek shelter in the nearest small store or building you can find. Avoid the city at all costs–”_ **

**_“–This isn’t real, right?”_ **

**_She turns to look at Beca, not surprised that she has her headphones on and seems to be ignoring the TV. Beca looks up when Emily waves to grab her attention, pulling her headphones off and sliding them around her neck as she asks, “what’s up?”_ **

**_“Listen.”_ **

**_She turns the TV up._ **

**_“–repeat, if you come across somebody who seems sick, we advise you to keep your distance, and call the authorities immediately. We do not know what this disease is. All we know is that it makes people very, very dangerous. If you cannot get through–”_ **

**_“–Dude you don’t believe this, right?”_ **

**_‘U.S GOVERNMENT ISSUES A NATIONAL SECURITY WARNING REGARDING UNKNOWN DISEASE’_ **

**_Emily watches the letters glide across the screen, her heart pounding in her chest and her stomach filling with dread._ **

**_“I don’t know, Bec, it seems real.”_ **

* * *

“Hey,” Beca snaps her fingers in front of her face, and she opens her eyes and yawns.

She’s not sure if it’s the blood loss or if she’s genuinely tired from only sleeping for 3 hours last night, but she started to feel dizzy about ten minutes ago, and it’s getting increasingly harder to keep her eyes open.

“Stay awake for me, Em, please.”

Beca’s voice is desperate and pleading; the most frantic Emily has ever heard it.

“You shot first,” she manages to say, and she watches as Beca looks up at her from where she’s kneeling on the floor. The first-aid kit is balancing on her knee as Beca sifts through it, looking for whatever it is that she needs to clean Emily’s wound. Emily’s not sure what she needs. She’s not quite sure of anything right now.

All she knows is that Beca could’ve got them killed – she _almost_ got them killed.

“Emily–”

“–You could’ve died, Bec.”

* * *

She doesn’t remember falling asleep.

For a brief moment when she wakes up, she thinks she might be dead.

There’s an orange glow through the window from the setting sun outside, and the soft sounds of a piano echoing through the barren house. It’s muffled due to the door being closed, but Emily can still recognize the song.

It makes her smile as she gets up from the couch, momentarily forgetting that she got shot in the arm earlier that day. The stinging pain reminds her, though, and her hand comes up to cover it instinctively. She feels a gauze there instead of bare flesh, and she looks down to see that Beca has done an okay job at covering it up. It’s not wrapped perfectly, but Emily can’t really complain.

It makes her happy, knowing Beca has been listening to her medical advice.

As she makes her way through the house, the floorboards creak underneath her. The piano starts to get louder the closer she gets to the dining room, until she’s finally stood in the doorway and it’s the only thing she can hear; until Beca is the only thing she can see.

* * *

**_“Why didn’t I know you could play the piano?”_ **

**_Beca shrugs, placing her fingers on the keys. “You never asked.”_ **

**_She watches in awe as Beca starts to play. She wants to ask her how long she’s known how to play, and at what age she learned, and many more questions that want out, but she’s frozen in place, afraid that Beca will stop if she speaks, and Beca stopping is the last thing she wants right now._ **

**_She can almost hear the words that are missing from the cover that Beca has seemingly perfected. The song absolutely destroys her in all the right ways, ever since she heard it for the first time._ **

**_“You know this song makes me cry,” Emily says as she leans against the piano, and she watches a smile form on Beca’s face._ **

**_“Only you’d cry at Toy Story.”_ **

**_“Wrong, I think many people have cried at Toy Story, you’re just a robot.”_ **

**_She never thought the sound of Beca missing a key on the piano because she’s laughing would be a pleasant sound, but she’s not surprised that she feels that way. A lot of the things Beca does makes her feel different, like how she enjoys listening to instrumentals sometimes, despite how she used to hate music with no lyrics to sing along to, or how she prefers pancakes over waffles now, because Beca makes the most perfect chocolate chip pancakes in the world._ **

**_So, she’s not surprised that she falls a little bit more in love when Beca misses that note, but it still takes her aback._ **

**_“You okay, Em?” Beca asks, because Emily knows that her facial expressions tend to give away a lot about her, so of course, Beca notices._ **

**_She figures ‘I think I just fell in love with you’ isn’t something you’d say to your best friend, despite how strongly you feel about her, so the only thing she can do is lie._ **

**_“I’m good, keep playing.”_ **

* * *

The look on Beca’s face when she plays the piano is the same, even now.

Her eyebrow is furrowed, lips set in a thin line as she concentrates on the piano keys.

The only difference is that it’s three years later and they’re fighting for their lives every day. Instead of the sweet smell of Beca’s home, all Emily can smell is sweat and blood, and the stench of decaying bodies surrounding her.

Yet, despite the ugliness of the world, all she feels when she watches Beca on the piano is _calm_ ; a sense of something – she thinks maybe it’s hope – that makes her close her eyes and forget, momentarily, that it’s the end of the world.

“Hey.”

She opens her eyes, not realizing that Beca had stopped. Her hand comes up to wipe away the tears that had silently slid down her cheeks as she makes her way over to the piano.

“You know that song makes me cry.”

The look on Beca’s face shows that she senses something familiar about the phrase and a few seconds later, it clicks.

“Only _you’d_ cry at Toy Story.”

Emily sits down on the bench beside Beca, biting her lip to stop from smiling at the memory that feels like it was a lifetime ago.

She reaches a hand out to the keys and presses down. It’s so silent in the room that despite expecting it, the sound still makes her jump.

She feels Beca’s shoulder nudge hers, and she turns to look at her.

“How’s your arm?”

“Hurts.”

“Yeah. I tried to wrap it like, professionally, like you do, but–”

“–Why did you shoot first?”

Beca’s face drops, her mouth shutting and her head turning to break eye contact. Emily watches her jaw clench, which she knows Beca always does to stop herself from crying or getting angry. If it was any other day, she’d apologize and tell her that it’s fine, she doesn’t have to talk about it. But today is different. Today, Beca almost got them killed.

“I was _scared_. He had a gun pointed at us and they were gonna kill us, I just… I couldn’t just stand there and wait for them to fire first, because they could’ve _killed_ you and–” She watches Beca suck in a deep breath before letting it out shakily. Her fingers are tapping anxiously against her legs, and Emily makes a quick decision to reach out and take her hand.

The tips of her fingers slide against Beca’s palm before their hands intertwine, and Emily’s thumb rubs soothingly over Beca’s knuckle as she waits.

When Beca looks at her, her lip trembles.

“Beca.”

“I’ll die before I let anybody hurt you again, Em.”

The second the tear escapes Beca’s eye, Emily reaches out with her free hand. She cups Beca’s face and uses the pad of her thumb to wipe the tear away. It doesn’t do much, but the contact makes Beca’s head tilt slightly towards her hand, and her eyes close as she lets out a content but shaky sigh.

“Hey.”

She hates to interrupt Beca’s thoughts, but Beca’s eyes are one of her favorite things, and she needs to look into them right now.

When they open, Emily immediately smiles.

“Don’t get us into fights like that again,” Emily whispers, her thumb stroking Beca’s face. “Next time, we might not win.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t you dare die for me.”

“But–”

“–I’m serious. You mean too much to me.”

“Fine.”

“And I love you.”

“I love–” Her eyes widen. “Wait.”

“I _know_ , Beca,” she laughs shakily. “I’ve known for a while now.”

Another tear falls from Beca’s eye as her hand comes up to cover Emily’s hand, as if to keep her where she is.

The quick glances at her lips and the soft, whispered confessions when she thinks Emily is sleeping. The kisses on her temple before bed as they lie together to keep warm, and the frantic yelling whenever a walker gets too close to Emily. There’s nothing on this earth that can convince Emily that Beca _doesn’t_ love her.

“And you…?”

“Yeah.”

“You love me.”

Emily smiles, nodding her head and trying to blink back the tears. “I love you.”

“And you’re not just saying this because we’re the only two good people left?”

“I promise.”

Emily’s hand slides a few inches down Beca’s face until her thumb strokes over her bottom lip, so slowly and so gently. It pulls another shaky exhale from Beca as her eyes flicker down to Emily’s lips. Her hand slides up Emily’s collarbone, around her shoulder to the back of her neck. She starts to pull her in slowly, and the last thing Emily sees is another tear slip down Beca’s cheek before she closes her eyes and Beca is kissing her.

Beca’s hand slides into her hair, and she finally lets go of her hand so she can pull her closer. The wound on her arm still throbs, but the twisting feeling in her stomach, and the tightness she feels in her heart, is enough to subdue the pain.

Beca’s other hand wraps around her waist as she pulls her closer, breaking the kiss to momentarily whisper “I love you” into Emily’s mouth.

All Emily can do is smile, grateful for this brief moment of calm in what seems to be a never-ending storm.

**Author's Note:**

> the song beca was playing on the piano is steven bear's piano cover of 'when she loved me' from toy story 2.
> 
> as usual i'm [chloebeale](http://chloebeale.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. you can support my writing [here](https://chloebeale.tumblr.com/donate)


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